Note 16 — XI.

It appears to be customary for people of decent station, but in distressed circumstances, to go round among their neighbors and the public, accompanied by a friend, who explains the case. I have been accosted in the street in regard to one of these matters; and to-day there came to my office a grocer, who had become security for a friend, and who was threatened with an execution,—with another grocer for supporter and advocate. The beneficiary takes very little active part in the affair, merely looking careworn, distressed, and pitiable, and throwing in a word of corroboration, or a sigh, or an acknowledgment, as the case may demand.... The whole matter is very foreign to American habits. No respectable American would think of retrieving his affairs by such means, but would prefer ruin ten times over; no friend would take up his cause; no public would think it worth while to prevent the small catastrophe. And yet the custom is not without its good side, as indicating a closer feeling of brotherhood, a more efficient sense of neighborhood, than exists among ourselves, although, perhaps, we are more careless of a fellow-creature's ruin, because ruin with us is by no means the fatal and irretrievable event that it is in England.—I. 543.